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The new type of coronavirus (COVID-19) has deeply affected football, the most followed sport in the world, financially and socially. The clubs that have been heavily hit financially will certainly focus more on the digital world to overcome this problem. Competition in the field will take place in the digital world at the same rate. Three factors will be very important for clubs in the new period: firstly, reassuring the loyal fans' expectation of success as before; secondly, adjusting themselves to the rules of financial fair play and being financially successful; and lastly, meeting the expectations of the new and digitalized fan generation. As a result, the football industry should find the most suitable way for itself, considering the negative consequences of COVID-19 and the changing dynamics of the industry.

This study investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the sustainability of sports business models by means of a specific case analysis, conducted on M-I Stadio S.r.l., the service management firm that provides all types of backstage activities related to football matches performed at San Siro Stadium in Italy.

Building on interviews on its management team's direct experience and on archival data, the authors depict the consequences of the pandemic in terms of corporate governance, accounting choices and overall strategic business development through information triangulation from a forward-looking perspective.

Complying with restrictions, M-I Stadio S.r.l. preserved its financial position by embracing digitalization, increasing information flows with partners and adopting a risk aversion behaviour. Overall, results indicate that the pandemic played a catalyst role in the transformation process of the football industry. Moreover, apart from the physical and virtual merge acceleration, well-being for athletes, society and the planet, transcending the gaming part of sports activities has also been taking place. The study also illustrates the foreseeable developments of sustainable sport management practices from a critical perspective.

Since the San Siro Stadium management company might represent one of the forefront companies, within the sports industry, this study results should be conveniently taken into consideration by sporting authorities and international bodies, emphasizing the relevance of sustainability (i.e. environmental and social practices within the sports industry) and digitalization so as to better prepare sports organizations and to provide the overall industry with the tools deemed necessary to navigate this important transition in a smoother way.

Many factors influence success at a professional football club, as each club has an exclusive definition and interpretation of success. Using the Football Management Q-Score as a foundation, the authors set out to prove the framework's robustness in the industry's current environment.

To determine the purpose, the authors conducted interviews with Bundesliga experts. Using the Gioia Method, the authors could condense interview feedback into aggregate themes reflecting the main findings of the analysis process.

From 1,025 codes, three main contributions resulted – the concept of intercorrelation, a more balanced and dynamic framework, and four new key drivers.

Expert feedback validated the framework as robust, and the further main contributions gave the framework a wider application to a larger range of clubs, allowing the users of the framework to infer a greater context. Interview results proved the inclusion of Kaplan and Norton's original framework with vision and strategy.

The aim of this study is to identify organisational capabilities (OC) for a successful digital transformation (DT) and associated structures of internal teams to orchestrate and support DT.

An explorative, qualitative study, comprising semi-structured interviews with 82 executives from 43 diverse National Football Associations (NFA) spread across five continents was conducted.

The results show that organisational culture, strategic sensitivity, up-to-date ICT-infrastructure, a digitally skilled workforce, leadership support, knowledge management and internal DT-teams are important capabilities to enable successful DT.

Due to the different levels of maturity of digitalisation and the financial constraints, not every NFA intends or is able to assign a full-time staff member exclusively to digital issues. Therefore, the most appropriate person was interviewed in each NFA.

Adapting an organisational culture to the requirements of the digital age is one of the most important steps in implementing DT. It is equally important for the leadership to form the strategic framework and enable the necessary training of employees to improve the results of the digitalisation processes.

This is the first study investigating NFA's DT from a worldwide perspective, identifying the most important factors for successful DT-processes.

Football is the world’s most popular sport and produces its own innovation ecosystem due to its linkage with economic, community and social endeavors. This chapter focuses on the way football clubs are innovative in terms of new product, service, system and technology development. Increasingly due to the digitalization of the global economy, more football clubs are focusing on innovation especially that related to technology. Thus, it is important to understand the role open innovation plays in fostering collaboration among ecosystem members. In addition, due to many football clubs having a social responsibility to their community at local, regional and international levels, it is important to understand the role leaders play in facilitating innovation. Therefore, this chapter also focuses on the role of social innovation in football ecosystems.

Tax revenues are becoming one of the crucial tax policy segments in developing countries. Governments intend to collect more funds in the budget. The study aimed to identify the dimensions and factors influencing tax compliance in Iranian professional football players.

Based on interpretive structural modelling (ISM), the required information was collected using a literature review and a pairwise comparison questionnaire from eleven sport academic and executive participants. Content validity index of the questionnaire was >0.7 and its inconsistency index was <0.1.

The influential factors put in six levels. Results showed “new technologies for implementing regulations” and “clear tax regulations” were the lowest level's most independent factors. Simultaneously, the “possibility of identifying violating taxpayers” and “transparency of the clubs' financial data” were the most dependent factors at the model's first level. Moreover, “legal” was the greatest, and “technological” dimensions had at least importance, and the “amount and manner of fines” was the influential factor. The findings can use for policymaking to improve the professional player's and society tax compliance.

The authors identified the most independent, dependent, influential and minor essential football players' tax compliance factors and the relations between these factors. Recognising each of the factors' role and level of importance can help governments and policymakers in tax legislation in sport.

Traditional sports have seen declining participation at many levels, with football being no different. This is occurring at a time when emergent technologies present new challenges, particularly to the crucial yet ignored cohort of millennials. Without meeting the needs of millennials, football cannot be successful in the future. This research seeks to understand how millennial football fandom (sport, not team) in Australia impacts football participation, whilst empirically examining the impact of football video games (FVGs).

Survey data are collected from online groups, forums and social media pages of Australian football (soccer) fans. Quantitative analysis of millennial fandom and its influence on football participation (for the first time demarcated into play and engagement) is undertaken, including the moderating influence of time spent playing FVGs, amidst covariate influences of age and number of children.

Results highlight the multi-dimensionality of millennial football fandom in Australia, reveal the typical hours spent playing football across a range of participation types (including play and engagement), support fan involvement’s influence on engagement with football, establish that a desire to interact with other football fans manifests in playing more football, specify how playing FVGs moderates these relationships, supports the covariate influences of age and evidences that playing FVGs does not hamper football play.

This is the first study to examine millennial fans of football (the sport, not tied to a club) and the influence of fandom on football participation. By separating football participation into two forms, play and engagement, we highlight discrete influences, whilst evaluating for the first time the moderating influence of the time millennials spend playing FVGs. For sport managers and administrators, these are important findings to facilitate better segmentation, recruitment, retention and participation, each with broader societal health benefits. This is undertaken in Australia where football is not a dominant code, relegating fandom to a niche, thus revealing important findings for sports and business management.

The purpose of this paper is to study virtual resistance towards the introduction of Norway's first professional eSport league in the category of sport video games (SVGs), Eserien – the professional FIFA league and its inclusion in the Norwegian Football Federation.

A qualitative content analysis of texts published from the first season of Eserien was launched (December 2018) and during the first season of Eserien (April 2019 to December 2019) in Norwegian online spaces. Based on this approach, a total of 23 texts were subjected to a qualitative content analysis. The theoretical framework for the analysis of the material is Guttmann's (1978/2004) characteristics of modern sport and processes of sportification, as well as conceptualizations of the sport-health ideology in national and international sport policies today.

The arguments made against the inclusion of the professional FIFA league Eserien as part of the Norwegian Football Federation revolves around three main themes: (1) eSport as something unhealthy and inactive, (2) issues of cheating and match fixing in professional eSports and (3) threats professionalized eSport poses for traditional football clubs and players in terms of securing sponsorship and gaining media attention.

A limitation is the small sample size consisting of data from the first season of the first professional FIFA league organized by a Norwegian governing sport body. More research is needed to support the results found here, and readers should be careful to transfer the findings from this study to other sporting contexts.

This study is an empirical exploration of resistance towards eSport expressed by traditional sport fans. These insights expand on existing sport management research on spectators, commercialization and professionalization of eSport.

The paper aims to present key insights for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage from implementing data analytics solutions and artificial intelligence (AI).

This conceptual paper builds on prior empirical and conceptual research, and it offers anecdotal evidence from a best-practice case study of Liverpool Football Club.

Beyond the well-known companies in profiting from AI, such as Amazon, this paper presents a surprising best-practice example for achieving a competitive advantage from combining data analytics and AI with human expertise. Liverpool Football Club is a leading soccer club from England, and it has experienced a major revival in terms of sporting success and financial performance in recent years. The club’s emphasis on data analytics and AI only contributed to this impressive evolution when it was complemented with the emotional intelligence and people skills of its present manager Juergen Klopp. Along with new conceptual arguments, this example of integrated intelligence offers important insights for managers and executives in companies from many industries – far beyond sports management.

The conceptual arguments and case example illustrate that the competitive benefits of implementing standardized AI solutions in an isolated way will often be relatively limited. Many AI solutions will be standardized in the near future, and they may easily be applied by many firms. Thus, even those companies that are considered as AI pioneers may not be able to sustain their competitive advantage unless they develop an integrated intelligence architecture, which combines human and AI. This integration of data analytics and AI with the human intelligence and expertise of a firm’s employees offers the basis for a sustainable advantage because it is difficult to match for competitors. Thus, the paper offers new theoretical insights and direct managerial implications with regard to profiting from AI and data analytics.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the future of professional soccer by 2025. Scientific foresight studies on this industry do not yet exist despite its current position at a crossroads: toward further exploitation of profit potential? Or clear commitment to the traditional European Model of Sport?

The authors conducted a Delphi-based scenario study. In total, 62 high-level experts from sport, business, and society evaluated the probability of occurrence, impact, and desirability of 15 future projections over at least two rounds. The resulting 5,940 quantitative judgments and 670 qualitative comments were condensed into probable scenarios and surprising wildcards.

Two probable scenarios for European professional soccer by 2025 exist: in an extrapolation scenario, clubs will reap long-term gains from fulfilling public demands regarding stadium security, competitive balance, and social engagement. The less likely alternative is an extensive commercialization, including a short-term exploitation of all imaginable income sources, such as virtually augmented stadiums, financial investors, and league-owned broadcasting channels.

The findings are primarily based on qualitative research and an all-German sample. Further studies could incorporate additional quantitative data or might survey an international panel to increase predictive accuracy.

The paper is novel in that it examines a yet unaddressed research gap – the future of professional soccer – with a common scientific foresight method that is already established in sport management research – the Delphi technique.